KWT recognizes that a healthy population is key to a healthy ecosystem.

We support the efforts of Communities Health Africa Trust (CHAT) which provides health services to the excluded communities of Samburu, Laikipia, Isiolo, and access to family planning in some Meru and Nakuru Counties.

The organisation reaches the communities through the most appropriate means, either with vehicles, camels, bicycles, or through trained community based members. Women have little or no knowledge about the advantages of family planning and, as a result, families experience vulnerability to hunger, illiteracy and severe poverty. The environment is fragile resulting in overutilization of many of its resources.

Many of the women CHAT serves live traditionally patriarchal, nomadic lifestyles, completely dominated by men. Most females do not attend their senior education levels. It is not uncommon for men in their 40’s and 50’s to marry 14, 15 years old girls. Over 90% have undergone the practice of Female Genital Mutilation – a practice that is considered traditionally mandatory for a girl to be “marriageable”. These women perform the majority of the work for their household: tending to livestock at a young age, later bearing and raising children, milking cattle, gathering firewood and finding water. They have no power in the communities; women never obtain a place of status amongst the elders and therefore rarely partake in the politics and decision-making within a community.

In response to this lack of accessible family planning services, high population growth, and large areas of land degradation the communities of these areas have requested CHAT, supported by KWT, to:

Protect the environment through increasing the uptake and access of family planning reaching approximately 15,000 individuals with various awareness activities and providing family planning commodities to at least 1000 women all in one year.

Both CHAT and KWT are confident that a health project focused on providing access to family planning services incorporating ecological awareness to impoverished Pardamat communities will greatly improve local livelihoods in the area.

KWT Support: KWT provides CHAT a grant of USD 25,000 per year to support its work in Samburu. Fundraising efforts are underway to get the Mara project started in the coming months.